"Space Oddity" as written by and David Bowie....
Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you "Here am I floating 'round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do"
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you "Here am I floating 'round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do"
Lyrics submitted by Novartza, edited by m33rkat, milomojo330
"Space Oddity" as written by David Bowie
Lyrics © T.R.O. INC.
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This song is about alienation and distancing yourself away from people by getting so lost in your mind that you're high up above everyone else. It's about becoming cynical and seeing the world as a sad place but being unable to communicate with anyone about it. "Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do" - he realizes there's nothing he can do about all of the problems he sees in the world.
"Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom? - He's lost communication with those on the ground (i.e. in reality). "The papers want to know who's shirts you wear" - something small and insignificant normal people would worry about seems so small and unimportant to this man metaphorically up in space looking down on the world. "The stars look very different today" - the more you spend time in your mind thinking about things, the more your perception of everything will change.
Start to understand this principle of intuition, this is what a majority of the greatest songs are about. It's not about literal interpretation. This is what poetry is, the soul.
Yep, exactly what you said. It's a huge metaphor for experiencing a profound mystical experience. Like the old saying goes, "As above, so below." Exploring the macrocosm (outer space and beyond) can tend to get you lost, if you stray too far. In the same way, delving into the microcosm (one's innermost self) can be an enormous journey, capable of disconnecting you from others just as much as a trek into deep space can.
The people that have dived far enough into expanding their consciousness through meditation or various --ahem-- OTHER methods know: Sometimes you go so far, that you start to wonder if you'll ever make it back. Or maybe you do come back, but things are never quite the same again.
Either that, or it's about drugs.
Yeah, probably the drugs.
this song, written during the height of the space race, is more about bowie's looming alienation than space travel. this is a romanticized conception of casting out from the normal crowd and becoming something new and different. something bowie still succeeds in doing.
While this song isn't about drugs, ashes to ashes is. Once again revisiting his psudo-persona, major tom, bowie tells the story of his battle with addiction and recovery (the entire album is about withdraw suffering).
Hallo Spaceboy sems to be about either major tom or ziggy or both. it seems like he is laying them to rest. but who the fuck can figure out his concept work anyway!??!
major tom (coming home) seems to be an unofficial sequel.and a damn good one.
Anyway, in thanks, Tom showed them the finished bits of Apollo 13, and Bowie was so impressed that he both made out with Tom, and wrote Space Oddity when the two went to get bananas from some mall or other. The Doctor told him that that would mess with all sorts of time causalities and such, but Bowie pointed out a record shop nearby, in which there were copies of Space Oddity, and The Doctor admitted that if it happened, Bowie should make sure that it still happens.
So, Bowie gets partway through the song and gets writer's block. He's got no idea what to write. The Doctor decides that something has to be done about that, or there's no way the timeline will be preserved, so he grabs Bowie and takes them five minutes into the future to find out how The Doctor fixes Bowie's writer's block.
Witnessing himself fixing Bowie's writer's block, he then takes Bowie one minute into the past, and does what he saw himself do. Bowie and The Doctor share a kiss, travel back to 1969, and Bowie releases the song and becomes a major star.
Anyway, I've always heard it was about a drug overdose, and it makes perfect sense to me. He takes his pills, he's ready for liftoff, he goes into orbit, but something goes wrong and he can't find his way back to Earth. I don't know about any actual evidence to that effect, but I've always thought it was a great way to look at it. It's also a really unique song (despite the fact that it's about drugs) because most drug-related songs of the time were about good trips and opening your mind, while "Oddity" highlights the darker, deadlier side of drugs while still managing to make it seem romantic and even heroic to lift off and never come back.
I'm not going to try to say I know Bowie personally and he told me, or anything stupid like that. It just always seemed to fit. I guess I'll cast my vote with the heroin people above.
Either way, it's a great, classic song.
He even re-visits the theme and admits it in "Ashes To Ashes".
So, I don't think it was a "doomed" space mission as much as it is someone deciding to end it in the most beautiful way possible (really - what a way to go... floating forever in space).